Merry Christmas!

As 2011 comes to an end, Ryan and I are crazy busy and getting very excited for 2012.  This week we have been catching up with the few people we know in Adelaide, we went to a work Christmas party, and we have been packing like mad for our trip.  I can't believe we leave for New Zealand tomorrow!!! 

Christmas for us will be spent in various airports, concluding with a late arrival in Christchurch.  Yes, Christchurch is where all of the recent earthquakes have been, so wish us luck!  Is it bad that I want there to be an earthquake while we're there so we can have an experience money can't buy?  Just a small one of course! 

Australians have a few different holiday traditions here, but for the most part Christmas is the same.  Their Santa still wears his fuzzy hat and coat (and probably puts ice packs under his shirt to survive the heat), they listen to the same Christmas carols (even the ones about snow), and they even put up plastic pine Christmas trees despite the fact that I'm pretty sure real ones don't exist here.  Of course they can't have the giant roast dinners that we're used to because it's so hot, so they have barbequed seafood as a traditional meal. 

So with that I wish all of you a Merry Christmas and a very happy New Year.  Thanks for following my blog, despite the long silences these days, and I promise many great posts about New Zealand upon our return!

Happy Holidays!

Love Steph and Ryan

Code Red (Take 2)

Today at work we had yet another day of excitement, with my second code red lightning storm.  Some people have been up here for almost a year and have never experienced one, so I count myself (un?)lucky.  This lightning storm was way more fun than the first one, mainly because I didn't have a plane to catch.  It also came in much quicker,  but consequently it left quicker than the last one.  All up we were only in lockdown for 1.5 hours instead of 4.5 hours.  Also, this time my camera was working so I got some pictures of the action.  Enjoy!

The storm moving in over the village.  This is when we got the code yellow, which means "prepare for code red".

Code Red!

The storm is right over us, heading for the mine.  Still no rain...

Massive downpour!  Shortly after this the storm got to the mine and we got a great show of lightning.

Two quick updates:

1. I now have internet at work through my phone!  Hopefully I'll be able to post once in awhile, but only if something interesting happens or I get some good pictures.
2. They now have bananas at work!  For those of you who don't know, bananas were averaging $18/kg when we got to Australia in May because of a flood that knocked down all of the banana trees.  Recently I've seen them on sale for between $3-$7/kg which is why work is now supplying them.  Very exciting for me!  Now I can eat peanut butter and banana sandwiches and freak out the Australians who think they're disgusting.

Second Week at Prominent Hill

The second week of work was much better than the first because I was getting used to the long days on my feet.  I finally know sort of what I'm doing, so now I can listen to music and podcasts while I'm working which makes the time go by much faster.  I don't have a lot more to say about the job, but I thought I would post some pictures. 

First, this is what my room is like.  The bed is pretty comfy and I have my own bathroom, so all in all it's pretty good!

Another part of the job is going on "core runs", which means that we drive out to a drill rig to pick up more trays of core to work on.  I think right now we have 5 rigs drilling within a 4 hour radius and core needs to be picked up from each of them every day.  Going on these runs is highly coveted since you basically get some time off work and you get to go on a nice drive.  Anyways, that's how I came across the dog fence!  Do you remember back when Ryan explained about the dingo fence that runs across the entire country to keep the dingoes out of the south?  Well I got to see it!

It's not that impressive, but I hear it's the longest fence in the world and is owned and maintained by the government.  Also in that picture you get to see my beautiful work outfit!

This is one of the drill rigs, and you can see the core lined up right in front waiting for us to pick up.

Some scenery out in the middle of nowhere:

Here are the cool lizards called goannas that hang out at the worksite.  They can get pretty big, and when they're scared they run up the tallest thing they can find.  That would be okay anywhere else, but in the Outback humans are the tallest things!

And finally, some sunrise pictures.  The sun comes up around 5:45am now, which is just when our bus is getting to the worksite.  Usually I'm inside and miss the sunrise, but luckily I saw a few.  The sun rises directly over the mine which makes for kind of a cool view.

The most eventful thing that happened my entire stint was actually the day I came back home.  We knew we were in for a rainstorm, but at lunchtime we got a "code red" alert because of a lightning storm.  That just means that lightning has been within 15(?)km of the work site so no one is allowed to go outside or drive, and we were not allowed to continue working.  There actually was lightning, and since there are no trees to get hit it makes sense that people needed to stay out of harms way.  To add to the chaos, the mine was in shutdown which means that half of the mine closes for repairs and the number of people at camp doubles.  Consequently there was an increased number of planes coming and going from the site that day.  During the 4 hours of code red I think 4 or 5 planes needed to land, but because no one was allowed to go out to check that the runway was clear the pilots had to circle overhead to check for themselves.  Also, once they landed, no one was allowed out of the planes.  Finally, an hour after my flight was set to depart, we got the code yellow alert and everyone made a mad dash for the village to pack their things and get to the plane.  Unfortunately almost immediately it turned back to code red so we still had to wait another hour for it to be safe again.  All in all it was pretty chaotic, but I only got home 2 hours late.  All in a day's work!

My First Few Days as a Fieldy

**Written November 20, 2011.  Post delay due to lack of internet.

It has been a few days now since I arrived at Prominent Hill, so I though I would give everyone a brief overview of my life at the mine. 

I arrived Wednesday afternoon after a 2:40h flight which stopped in Port Augusta.  It's a bit strange to have a whole flight of people who are all going to the same job site as you, since usually you're quite anonymous on an airplane.  Unfortunately my pictures from the plane didn't really turn out, but this was just as we were landing in Port Augusta and you can see where the ocean meets the Outback.

When I arrived I met someone from my team and got my room assignment, but then had the afternoon to myself.  Since my room hadn't been cleaned from the previous person yet I decided to go for a swim in the amazing pool they have here.  It's about 4 lanes and I'm guessing almost 25m long, and it is the perfect temperature; it's just cold enough to cool you off after a hot day. 

Overall the facilities here are quite impressive.  The food is surprisingly good for buffet food and they have a lot of healthy options (and not so healthy ones) to choose from, as well as a huge variety of both hot and cold food.  During breakfast you also pack your lunch for that day, and that has also been pretty good.  They have tons of salad options usually, as well as leftover hot food, meat pies, and all the typical sandwich fixings.  My room is pretty good (bed, tv, desk, bathroom) and the neighbours are quiet. 

The job itself is repetitive but completely learnable and manageable.  I think I'm doing a really good job, and hopefully I'll learn some more things soon.  Here's a picture of the core shed I've been working in for the past few days. 

Basically I take the drill core from those black trays, lay them out on the bench and make sure they all fit together.  Then I mark them, measure them, and put them back in the black trays.  Easy.  It's also a bit more of a social job since there are always other people working on the other rows around you.  There are other jobs in other sheds that I haven't learned yet, but this one is pretty good so far.  The hardest part is physically standing for 12 hours.  My legs are doing alright, but my feet are absolutely killing me.  We get two 15 minute breaks and a 40 minute lunch break, but that's the only sitting for the whole day.  Going from being unemployed to this has been extremely hard for me, but I'm doing my best to be optimistic.  I keep telling myself it's great to break in my feet for hiking in New Zealand!

Where we work is in between the Village (where everyone eats/sleeps/exercises) and the Pit (the massive mine), so this is the view we have every day from work.  Again, not a good picture since it was from my phone.

There is also a large area outside where we lay out all of the trays for the geologists to look at (hence why Ryan is getting a tan and I'm not!)

Today we were moving some of these trays and found a ton of wolf spiders.  From what I understand they can get quite big (the ones we saw were smaller than a bottle cap) and you'll have to go to the hospital if they bite you, but they won't kill you.  I've also seen a few hawks and wedge tailed eagles, which makes sense since there are mice everywhere!  One ran up my leg while I was reading at a desk in the core shed.  Gross.  Unfortunately that probably means there are snakes around, but it also means there are cool lizards like the goannas that hang out around camp.  I don't have a picture of them yet, but hopefully I will soon.

Anyways, I think that's all of the excitement for now.  I'm exhausted and pretty much go to bed as soon as I get off the phone with Ryan around 9pm.  I've been getting up at 4:40am, which has actually been the easiest part of the job.  I have cell reception so I can check email and stuff, but unfortunately no computer internet.

I'm working in the Outback!

I have been waiting a very long time to finally be able to say this:  I officially have a real job!  Today I finally got a start date (Wednesday November 16) for my new job as a Field Technician.  It's been in a bit of limbo for awhile, so it's quite a relief that I actually have a start date and a plan of action.

As I think I've mentioned before, I've been trying to get this job as a fieldy for awhile but it was sort of dependant on Ryan's current job.  Ryan recently switched job sites so we were waiting for him to make a name for himself there before Euro attempted to call in a favour to get me a job as well.  Of course since Ryan is amazing they absolutely love him, so it wasn't too hard to get me signed up.  Temporarily I will be working at the Prominent Hill site for Oz Minerals (not Carrapateena where Ryan currently works) with the eventual intention of me moving over to the Carrapateena site once I have proven myself as a competent employee.  That plan is of course just a hopeful plan at the moment, so we'll see how it goes.

In the meantime, Prominent Hill is supposedly a really awesome mine site.  They have hundreds of people there at any given time so the facilities are top notch.  There is an outdoor swimming pool, an indoor cricket pitch, full gym, bar, and I get my own room with an ensuite bathroom and cable TV.  I've also been told that they're fantastic employers, so I really shouldn't have any trouble with the job or my coworkers.  It's a far better site than Ryan's at now, so I'm sure it will be fun to tease him a little when he's eating a self-cooked meal and I have a full spread to choose from!  Also I get to fly directly to the mine, where as Ryan has to fly and then drive 2 hours to his.

The job itself is apparently unskilled and quite repetitive.  I'll be sorting, bagging, measuring and cutting rock samples and documenting results from what I understand.  Luckily it will be outdoors but in the shade, so I won't be under direct sun all day.  Unfortunately I'm going up there just when the weather is getting hot, so in addition to learning how to work 12 hour shifts I'll also be learning how to deal with the Outback. 

So that's about all I know for now.  I will have cell phone reception but limited internet at the site, so hopefully I will be able to post at least once while I'm at work.  I'm very excited to finally be going to the Outback after almost 6 months of living here, so I'll definitely have some things to share.

In other news, we have officially booked our trip to New Zealand!  We're leaving Christmas Day for 2 weeks and touring only the south half of the South Island.  We will be camping and hopefully doing some hiking as well.  Also our friend Kevin is coming to visit in a few weeks, so we have lots to look forward to!  Sorry I haven't had much to post about recently, but it looks like I'll have lots to tell you in the upcoming weeks.  

Even More Birds

I've decided to take a new approach to the bird pictures.  Instead of stealing pictures from people off the internet, I'm only going to post a picture if we've actually been able to take a picture.  Consequently, some pictures won't be very good, and the ones that are good are probably Ryan's!  I've also gone back to my other bird posts and updated them with our own pictures and removed any others.  It also means that if I identify any of them wrong you'll be able to call me on it (if you care).  The birds in this post are mostly from our trip to Kangaroo Island and Perth, with a few from my hike up Mount Lofty and through the Adelaide Botanic Gardens.  I haven't done a bird post in awhile, so this will be a long one!

'Adelaide Rosella'

This bird has slight variations that make it unique just to this area.  I've been watching out for it carefully and finally saw one!  It's the bird on the right.

Australian Raven

Australian Ringneck ('Twenty-eight' Parrot Variety)

Spotted on our trip to Western Australia.

Black Swan

Blue-breasted Fairy-wren

We saw both the male and female.

Female

Male

Cape Barren Goose

Caspian Tern

Common Blackbird

Common Starling

Crested Tern

Eastern Rosella

Eurasian Coot

European Goldfinch

Golden Whistler

Grey Teal Duck

Little Raven

Magpie-lark

We've been seeing these since the beginning, but it just took me awhile to realize they weren't the same as the Australian Magpie. 

Musk Lorikeet

Pacific Gull (two markings)

These guys are massive!

Pied Butcherbird

Pied Oystercatcher

Red Wattlebird

It might be hard to see, but they have weird red "wattles" sticking out the side of their face!

Scarlet Robin

Short-billed Black-Cockatoo

This was an exciting sighting.  We were watching for whales in Albany but saw this guy instead!

Splendid Fairy-wren

Swamp Harrier

Varied Sittella ('Black-capped Sittella' variety)

It took us FOREVER to identify this one because there are so many different varieties.

Welcome Swallow

Western Corella

White-breasted Robin

White-browed Babbler

White-naped Honeyeater

Creepy Crawlies

In honour of Halloween this week, I thought I would do a post on the bugs and spiders we've seen so far.  Beware of creepy pictures!

You know that we've already seen the Redback Spider and Ryan has seen the Golden Orb Spider, and we also saw a Tiger Snake.  Ryan thinks he saw a Mouse Spider at work, but there are no pictures to prove it so we're watching out for another one.

I'm going to do my best to identify the following pictures based on what I find on the internet!

Black House Spider

This spider is poisonous but not deadly.  Good thing, since one was in my shower while I was in there.  This particular one we found outside on a spider-finding mission.

Huntsman Spider

This one was on our back gate at night, maybe a bit bigger than a Toonie.  They're non-aggressive spiders and are actually good at keeping other bug populations down, but you should still avoid getting bitten since it is painful.

Daddy Long Legs

We have tons of these, but I actually don't have any pictures.  They look like they do in Canada and I think they're responsible for most of the webs in the house.  They vary in size from about a centimetre (including legs) to about three centimetres.

Unidentified Spider

For those of you who read my blog as a procrastination technique, maybe you can help me out with this one.  I've spent a good while trying to figure out what this one is but can't find anything similar online.  We found it on our wall near the ceiling and it was about 2cm long.  The colour is accurate, but I'm sorry the picture is blurry.

Black Portuguese Millipede

Spiders are pretty creepy, but this was the most disgusting bug in our house.  It was on our bathroom floor and scared the crap out of me when I first saw it.

Hairy Mary Caterpillar

Or at least that's the closest thing I can find.  It doesn't seem like anyone on the internet actually knows its name.  We saw this guy in Kings Park, Perth.

Shingleback Lizard

I don't have a picture of this either, since when I saw one I thought it was a snake and got really freaked out.  They have stubby legs, so it was really hard to tell at first.  It was scurrying around in the shrubs near our beach, and I'm pretty sure I saw a bunch of babies while I was climbing Mt. Lofty.  This website has a good picture though.
**Update** Turns out I actually did take a picture!

That's all for now!  I'll try and be more diligent about taking pictures, but to be honest my main priority is to get them out of the house or as far away from them as possible.

These days there isn't much to blog about, so I'll try to gather another list of new birds we've seen.  It just takes a really long time to ID them all (this post took over 2 hours, and it was short!) so don't expect it tomorrow.

Happy Halloween everyone!